The Walking Dead: 9 Things "Conquer" Got Right (And 1 It Didn't)

8. All The Dawn Of The Dead References

The Walking Dead has always existed as part of a continuum of zombie fiction. Whilst it's avoided saying the z-word for the most part, and never directly referenced other undead films or TV shows directly, it's always been clearly influenced by the history of zombie stuff. In a literal sense, the show has cribbed from the best and brightest by bringing long-time zombie experts KNB Effects on to do the make up. €œConquer€ was the first time the show has explicitly given a shout out to that history, with the episode littered with references to George Romero's Dawn Of The Dead. Romero essentially invented all the tropes of the genre that have been used since, from the the shambling to the use of zombies as a stand-in for whatever social issue the director wants to explore. As such, The Walking Dead owes a particular debt of gratitude to Dawn Of The Dead. The whole bit with Daryl and Aaron falling into a trap set by the W-folks was very Dawn Of The Dead, clearly similar to the two big actions scenes in that movie where the characters use trucks to block up the mall their holed up in. Then, when they got saved by Morgan, there was a specific shot of Aaron sinking a machete into one of the walker's heads that was exactly the same as one from that film.